Project title: Worldwide phylogeography and history of the globally invasive weed species Chenopodium album
Founded by: Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GAČR)
Duration: 2023–2025
Principal investigator: prof. Mgr. Bohumil Mandák, Ph.D.
Abstract:
Agricultural weeds compose a unique evolutionary state, neither wild nor domesticated, that has developed in parallel to crop domestication. One of the main representatives of weedy species worldwide is Chenopodium album s. str., an aggressive weed of many crop plantations. As a typical weed species, its distribution is linked with the first Neolithic agriculturalist's colonization of the European continent. We would like to provide insights into the worldwide phylogeography of the species, describing its history and migration dynamics and disentangling current and past processes underlying spectacular success over the globe by restriction– associated DNA sequencing analysis (RADseq). We will test two hypotheses: (1) the spread of C. album s. str. followed the spread of agriculture and bread wheat cultivation, and (2) there is no single wave of the C. album s. str. invasion, instead different time periods are characterized by different genetic lineages, most probably related to farming practices.